The Best Possible Choice
Aug. 29th, 2008 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billroperI was delighted when the news broke this morning that McCain had selected Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate, having gone to bed last night expecting Pawlenty. McCain needs to take risks if he's going to have a chance of winning this election and this looks to be one of the good ones.
McCain needs to get people who can be persuaded to do so to take a second look at him. (If this doesn't apply to you, that's fine. I suspect that McCain could have picked the deity of your choice as his running mate with a divinely-backed promise of Peace on Earth and he still wouldn't be your preferred candidate. :) ) Palin provides that in a way that none of the supposed front-running choices could have. Whether it will make a difference remains to be seen.
And I am absolutely thrilled to have someone on board the Republican ticket who has made her reputation by going in, kicking butt, and taking names in her efforts to rid her own party of corruption. If it were possible to say the same about Senator Obama, I'd be much less worried about him than I am. (Yes, I know about the investigation into Palin. It appears to be a non-event. Certainly McCain knew about it and picked her anyway.)
That is change that I can believe in.
I wish we had such Republicans in Illinois.
McCain needs to get people who can be persuaded to do so to take a second look at him. (If this doesn't apply to you, that's fine. I suspect that McCain could have picked the deity of your choice as his running mate with a divinely-backed promise of Peace on Earth and he still wouldn't be your preferred candidate. :) ) Palin provides that in a way that none of the supposed front-running choices could have. Whether it will make a difference remains to be seen.
And I am absolutely thrilled to have someone on board the Republican ticket who has made her reputation by going in, kicking butt, and taking names in her efforts to rid her own party of corruption. If it were possible to say the same about Senator Obama, I'd be much less worried about him than I am. (Yes, I know about the investigation into Palin. It appears to be a non-event. Certainly McCain knew about it and picked her anyway.)
That is change that I can believe in.
I wish we had such Republicans in Illinois.
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How I Broke Down the Positions
Date: 2008-08-30 05:53 am (UTC)Similarly McCain joins Bush in supporting: permanent $trillion tax cuts for the wealthiest, permanent and expanding military involvement abroad, all of our many reasons for invading Iraq (whatever they were then or are this week), warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus for anyone the President deems an enemy combatant, privatization of social security, deployment of missile defense (but only without Russian cooperation, so that we can finally establish a nuclear first strike capability on Moscow and win that Cold War, woo!), school vouchers, and TEACHING INTELLIGENT DESIGN (another big red button for me) and school prayer and all the other pet issues of the James Dobson crowd.
Areas in which McCain and Obama's positions do not differ and I consider them both right: support for space exploration, support for alternative energy, opposition to affirmative action, support of disability rights, support for the death penalty, tough on crime.
Areas in which they agree and they're both wrong: giving amnesty to telecoms assisting in warrantless wiretapping (and support of the PATRIOT Act in general), support/expansion of tax funded faith-based programs, both are hypocrites on campaign finance reform, both give credence to an autism/vaccine link
Areas in which Bush/McCain agree and Obama is wrong: free trade/NAFTA, aggressive development of nuclear power (Obama supports this at a considerably more limited scope)
Areas I have no strong opinion on and don't care about the candidates' positions: gun control, immigration, Medicare, cigarette tax, drug enforcement
Additionally, McCain has said he would make it a goal of his presidency to overturn Roe v Wade, that only a Christian could properly be president, that he would continue to expand the executive branch's power and create a "President's Question Time" which George Will called unconstitutional, and his current campaign violates every "soft money" and "issue ad" rule of campaign finance reform he's ever proposed.
Don't tell me that those who have come to hate McCain just need a second look. I would have voted for him over Gore! A second look, third look, hundredth look is how I came to see him for the say-anything political monkey he is, and hate his lying ass. He gets worse and worse with each look and I swear to you, Bill...I swear I am looking for some good in McCain. What little there is disappears daily, and the Palin tap took the biggest remaining chunk of it.
Why don't you take a second look at him? Or Palin, for that matter? Let's see you outline the differences and similarities between Palin's positions and Ann Coulter's? I'd love to hear any you can find.
I'm sorry for the rant, I mean that.
But I'm extremely insulted that you'd suggest that opposing McCain means I'm either hopelessly partisan or haven't done my due diligence on the old man. I'm an independent, in a period of deep disgust with the right and hoping to someday see the rational wing of the GOP take over again. McCain might have been it, once, but he's made all his deals with the devils and the crazies and now he's the best you've got.
Not enough for this centrist. Try again in 2012.